


they called you devil's daughter

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-02 02:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6547384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing about this day has been easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The walk is ten blocks and, even though it’s hell on her throbbing (probably sprained) ankle, she’s grateful for it. It gives her time to firm her resolve _and_ the chance to collect herself, to get her shaking under control and fight off the tears that keep threatening. It doesn’t do much for her heart, which just _refuses_ to slow down, but she’s okay attributing that to adrenaline—she’s definitely got plenty of it.

Not that all the time to prepare herself makes it easy to go inside the building when she finally reaches it. Her ankle hurts and the rain is freezing and there is a _really good reason_ she’s here, but she still stands outside, fighting herself, for at least two minutes. This hasty, spur-of-the-moment plan she’s drummed up has a lot of flaws. She doesn’t even wanna _think_ of all the ways it could end badly.

But nothing about this day has been easy. So she sucks it up, opens the door, and walks in.

There’s a large, circular logo stamped on the middle of the lobby floor. It’s bland and innocuous and completely non-threatening—just some abstract shapes overlaid with a few letters. But if she lets her eyes unfocus, she can make out the skull and tentacles hidden in its outline.

Those are _very_ threatening, and she shivers as she alters her course so she doesn’t have to walk over the logo on her way to the front desk.

Still, as terrifying as it is, it’s reassuring to know she’s in the right place. Other than the octopus, the lobby isn’t really what she’d expect from HYDRA. Smooth marble floor, shiny green walls, a peacefully bubbling fountain next to a bank of elevators—it reminds her more of the office building her eye doctor is in than a global terrorist organization.

The woman at the front desk isn’t what she’d expect, either. Blonde and pretty and professionally dressed, she looks up with a friendly smile that immediately creases into a worried frown.

“Oh my god,” she says, reaching for the phone next to her. “Are you all right, miss? Do you need the pol—?”

“My name is Alice Ward,” she interrupts, and watches her still. “I need to speak to my father.”

The receptionist is quiet for a long minute. “One moment please.”

She waves over a heavily-armed man from a security desk Alice somehow managed to miss on her way in, and the two of them have a quiet and very hurried conversation. Alice leans against the front counter to ease the strain on her ankle and watches the two of them without any real interest. Now that she’s _here_ , now that she’s fulfilled her goal of _find HYDRA, introduce yourself as a Ward, ask for your father_ , it’s like everything has just…drained out of her.

She feels empty.

The security guard is tapping away at a tablet and, after a few minutes, goes stark white. The receptionist peers over his shoulder at it and then actually wavers on her feet.

Everything happens very quickly after that.

Alice is ushered into some kind of break room, and in short order it’s full of people, each looking more panicked than the last. There are six different frantic-sounding phone calls happening at once; one person brings her some ice for her bruised cheek, someone else brings her a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate, muttering dire things about her catching pneumonia from the damn rain, and within twenty minutes, a doctor shows up to look her over.

Everyone is busy and frenzied and loud—one guy asks her every two minutes exactly if she needs anything else—and, weirdly, Alice doesn’t mind it. Usually this kind of bustling crowd would bother her, but…it’s almost nice. Last night was too quiet; this is better.

But all of the action in the room screeches to a halt when her father walks in.

Just like that, her numbness shatters.

The last time she saw him, she was seven. He hasn’t changed much since then; there’s a scar bisecting his left eyebrow and a real beard where before there was only stubble, but for the most part, he looks exactly like the man who made her pancakes for breakfast and called her the smartest little girl in the whole world when she read aloud to him and hugged her and—

She cried herself to sleep every night for _weeks_ after she and mom left. But that was then, when she was seven years old and had no idea that she and her mom had been prisoners…or that her father was a mass-murdering psychopath.

This is now.

“Ally,” he breathes, and crosses the room in four quick steps. The doctor in the middle of wrapping her ankle tenses visibly when her father crouches next to him. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

Something is pounding in her ears. It might be her heart—or it might just be the echo of every horrible thing her family has ever told her about him. He’s the reason Grandpa Phil spent six weeks in a wheelchair when she was ten, why Aunt Daisy has to wear a wrist brace when it rains, why Uncle Trip’s recruits aren’t allowed to talk to her until they’re a real part of the team…

But he doesn’t _look_ like a psychopath.

He looks like her dad.

Maybe she’s taking longer than she thought to answer, or maybe he’s just impatient—either way, he turns to the doctor while she’s still searching for words.

“Well?”

“Um,” the doctor says, and clears his throat. “Her ankle is badly sprained, but that’s the worst of it. She’s showing some signs of shock, has some bruises and abrasions—”

The doctor might just not have anything else to say, but chances are the sudden stop to his sentence is down to the way Alice’s father’s face has darkened. _Now_ he looks scary, and she’s obviously not the only one who thinks so; she’d swear no one in the room is breathing.

There’s a long, tense moment of silence, and then he says, “Out.”

It’s said very quietly, and not really aimed at anyone in particular, but the whole room scrambles to obey. In seconds, it’s just Alice, her father, and the man and woman who followed him in. They’re not the ones Alice cares about, though. All her attention is on her father.

He shifts into the empty space the doctor left behind, directly in front of her, and rests both hands on her knees. She’s hit with a sudden flash of memory, him kneeling to tie her bright pink shoes when she was little, and all the tears she managed to push away on her way here come rushing back at once to sting at her eyes.

“Ally?” her father asks gently. “Can you talk to me, sweetheart?”

That’s right. She still hasn’t said anything.

“I’m okay.” She clutches the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “You got here fast.”

It’s a pointless thing to say, and she immediately feels dumb, but it’s the only thing she can think. She wasn’t expecting him to show up so quick—as far as she knows (which, okay, isn’t much); this is just some random, low-level base. There’s no reason for HYDRA’s _head_ to be anywhere near it.

She thought she’d have longer to get ready. She thought she’d have some _warning_.

“I was only a few states over,” he says, searching her face for—for what? “Who hurt you? What happened?”

It’s not the first time she’s been asked—it’s not even the first time _he’s_ asked it—but for some reason, this time it wakes her right up.

What the fuck is _wrong_ with her? Why is she just _sitting_ here? She’s been getting fussed over, drinking hot chocolate and sulking while Mom is—while Mom is—

“They have Mom,” she says, and it comes out on a sob. “You have to—they have Mom.”

His face goes dark again, but this time it’s more comforting than scary. She’s never been sure where her parents stand, not with the whole him imprisoning her/her taking Alice away from him thing, and every member of her family’s got a different opinion on it. But if he’s angry over what’s happening to Mom—that’s a good sign, right?

Even though he looks furious, though, his voice is even. “Who does?”

“I—I don’t know,” she admits, swiping at her face. She’s crying now, just a little. “They took over the Playground last night.” Just remembering it makes her go cold all over, and she huddles into her blanket. “Some of them were—were ours.”

She can’t say family. They _were_ , but she can’t say it.

“They were SHIELD agents?” he asks.

She nods jerkily. “I don’t know what happened after they took control. They put me in a cell. Then, a few hours ago they pulled me out of it and put me in a van with Mom. They were taking us…somewhere. I don’t know. I think they told Mom, though. She was really angry. And—”

And scared. She knows Mom was scared. She could tell. But it feels…weird to think about saying it. Disloyal, maybe.

So she doesn’t.

Her father rubs her knee gently. “How did you get away?”

“Mom,” she says. “We were changing cars and she—she went for one of their guns. They were all distracted by her, and she yelled for me to run, so I did.” Her breath hitches, and suddenly, she’s _really_ crying. The horrible, sobbing kind of crying that she can’t stop, that shakes her whole body. “I _left_ her.”

Left her and was _grateful_ for how long it took to get to help. Left her and just _sat here_ in comfort, saying no whenever someone asked her if she needed anything instead of telling them that her _mom was in danger_ —instead of asking for some of those security guys with all their guns to go _save_ her mom. Left her and was more concerned with seeing her father again than actually asking him for the help she needed.

What is _wrong_ with her?

“Hey, hey. No,” her father says, and before she knows it he’s on the couch with her, pulling her into his arms so she can sob onto his shoulder instead of in her hands. “No, sweetheart, you did exactly the right thing.” He rubs circles on her back, slow and steady, like she’s a little kid crying over her skinned knee again. “Staying there wouldn’t have helped you _or_ your mom.”

“But what if she—what if they—” She can’t even say it.

He hugs her tighter, and something clenches hard in her chest. “You don’t need to worry about that, sweetheart. I’m gonna get her back.” He kisses her hair, then pulls back to look at her seriously. “But to do that, I’m gonna need your help. Do you think you can answer some questions for me?”

Of _course_ she can—just as soon as she can stop crying long enough to speak. Her father doesn’t push; he holds her through her sobbing, shushing her and rubbing her back, and somehow it’s both exactly and nothing at all like being comforted by anyone in her family.

And that’s…wrong, isn’t it? Maybe?

Part of her feels like she _shouldn’t_ be comforted by him, like she should shove him away or tell him to get lost or something. She should say she’s here for _help_ , not hugging, and that he should keep his comfort to himself. She thinks that’s what Aunt Bobbi would tell her to do.

(But then she remembers Aunt Bobbi bringing her dinner in her cell last night, telling her that everything would be fine and no one was gonna hurt her, smiling and trying to reassure her and acting like she hadn’t _led a hostile takeover_ of their home, and cries harder.)

It’s at least ten minutes before her tears slow enough that she can force the rest of them down. And it might be wrong of her, but she lets her father hold her through all of it.

“Okay?” he asks gently, hand stilling on her back.

“Yeah,” she says, and sits back against the couch, swiping at her face. “Yeah, I’m okay.” She takes a deep breath that stabs at her aching chest. “What do you need to know?”

Her father looks to the two people who stuck around, and Alice’s stomach does a weird little flip at the sight of them sitting at the table in the little kitchenette area. She totally forgot they were there. And the idea that they’ve been just sitting there, watching her cry…

It’s not important. It’s the least important thing ever. All she cares about is getting Mom back; she’ll cry in front of all of HYDRA if that’s what it takes.

Anyway, at a tip of her father’s head, the man brings over a bottle of water from the mini fridge.

“Have some water first,” her father orders. “Take a minute to breathe.” Before Alice can argue—she’s been breathing this whole time! Mom’s in _danger_ , they can’t spare any more minutes!—he raises a hand. “I have a lot of questions for you, and the clearer your head is when you answer them, the better. You’ll save more time later by taking a minute now, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, grudgingly, and they sit in silence for a minute while she drinks her water and, yes, breathes.

She’s not about to admit it, but it probably does help. By the time she’s finished half the water, her head isn’t pounding nearly as bad, and the awful shivery/queasy feeling too much crying always brings on is mostly gone.

“All right,” her father says, rubbing her shoulder. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” she says at once, setting her water aside to prove it.

“Start at the beginning,” he instructs. “Jemma distracted the guards. Then what?”

“I ran,” she starts, and he shakes his head.

“We need more than that,” he says, not unkindly. “Which way did you run? How far? For how long? Do you remember anything you passed that might help us retrace your steps?”

“Right.” She takes a deep breath, tries to think back, and starts again. “We were on a back street somewhere, and there was an alley…”

It takes her a long time to get through the story, mostly because her father keeps interrupting to ask questions. He’s not mean about it, just really focused, and somehow—she doesn’t know _how_ —it reminds her of watching Mom in the lab.

It’s comforting.

That sense of familiarity goes a long way to helping her keep her cool, both in the _wow, today sucked, I want to cry for a million years_ sense and the _annoyance over endless questions_ sense. Her father has questions about every tiny detail: he wants to know whether the dog park she passed was on the left or the right side of the street, whether the fence she sprained her ankle jumping over (his face goes scary-dark at that part, but only for a second) was wooden or chain-link, whether she stopped to talk to anyone on her way…

She answers all of his questions. About her escape, about her desperate dash away from her kidnappers (and her _mom_ ), and about the time she spent wandering aimlessly after she lost them. She even tells him, guiltily, about stealing a phone that was sticking out of some guy’s pocket, and how she used it to look up this address—which leads to a digression about how she knew it was a HYDRA base.

“I help Aunt Daisy sometimes,” she says, and her father’s face does something…weird. “Not, like, with the hacking stuff. But research and all. I knew ‘cause of that that JR Associates was a HYDRA front, so I just…googled the nearest office.”

It occurs to her—kind of late—that maybe it’s not such a good idea to tell the head of HYDRA that SHIELD knows about at least one of his front companies, but her father barely blinks.

“That was smart,” he praises, and—

Alice’s head hurts.

It’s hard to believe that fear of this man has shaped her whole life. It’s hard to believe that this man—who’s kept his arm around her shoulders this whole time, who’s been patient and gentle with her every time she’s faltered over a detail, who keeps _complimenting_ her for things like bravery and ingenuity—has injured every member of her family at least once. It’s hard to believe _he’s_ the reason she has to go to school under a fake name.

She trusts her family, she does…or she did. Aunt Bobbi’s definitely a traitor, so who knows who else was helping those people? Is Uncle Trip less or more trustworthy than Aunt Bobbi? What about Aunt Daisy? Uncle Fitz?

She doesn’t know.

But she trusts _Mom_. She can absolutely trust Mom. And she knows Mom would never, ever lie to her. It’s just…really hard to get her head around the idea that all those terrible things she’s been told (and _not_ told; that eavesdropping phase she went through was really not a great idea) were about _him_.

“And, hey, don’t feel bad about taking that guy’s phone.”

“I do, though,” she says, seizing on to the distraction with both hands. “Smart phones are expensive—and I didn’t even keep it! I—”

“Hey,” her father interrupts, and the arm around her shoulders tightens. “Any decent person would’ve wanted to help you out, right? I’m sure if he knew what you needed it for, he wouldn’t have minded.”

“And if he wasn’t decent?” she asks, feeling miserably contrary.

“If he wasn’t decent enough to help a kidnapped teenager, then he  _deserved_  to have his phone stolen,” is his immediate answer, and Alice frowns.

She feels like there’s a flaw in that logic, but somehow, she just can’t pick it out.

“I could have at least _asked_ first,” she says uncertainly, but even as her father shakes his head, she finds the flaw in _her_ logic. “Except if he’d said no I wouldn’t have been able to take it, because he would’ve been paying attention to it.”

“Exactly,” her father says, and hugs her close for a second. “You did the only thing you could, Ally. Wanting to get to safety and help your mom is nothing to be guilty over.”

Probably she shouldn’t be taking advice on right and wrong from the head of HYDRA, but…it does make sense. And it makes her feel better, which—after the day she’s had—she thinks she deserves.

It also—not reminds her, exactly, it’s not like she could _forget_ , but—redirects her attention to the _real_ issue here.

“Can you?” she asks. “Help Mom, I mean?”

Her father glances away, towards the table, and Alice follows his gaze. The man apparently left at some point without her noticing (he must be a specialist, like Uncle Trip; they’re the only people who can sneak around like that), but the woman is still there, sitting at an angle to them with a tablet on her lap and a phone pressed to her ear.

Alice’s father raises an eyebrow and, when he gets a sharp nod in return, smiles grimly.

“Yeah, Ally,” he says. “We can absolutely help your mom.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma has a series of troubling conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is so much longer than I wanted it to be, but what can I say? No one would shut up.
> 
> Thanks very much for the comments and kudos! They helped a lot to keep me going when frustration had me wanting to give up on this stupid chapter. I know I owe replies--for this and other fics--and I'll get to them ASAP. In the meantime, just know that they mean lots and lots to me. <3
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Jemma’s heart doesn’t leave her throat until the last of the armed guards who chased after her daughter returns, sheepish and panting. And, most importantly, _alone_. She slumps back against the bench to which she is restrained, weak with relief.

“We lost her,” the guard reports, breathlessly, to Agent Trammell.

Agent Trammell is a low-level field operative who rejoined SHIELD three years after the uprising. He is semi-permanently stationed on Zephyr One. Six weeks ago, he was careless handling a sample case seized from a HYDRA base and managed to infect himself with an unknown and very deadly pathogen.

Six weeks ago, she saved his life. Two hours ago, he struck Alice in the face.

Words cannot express how much Jemma regrets the time and care she put into developing a cure for that pathogen.

Trammell curses and paces away from the guard. One of the others offers him a radio, a sort of _might as well get it over with_ expression on his face, but Trammell waves him off impatiently.

Then he rounds on Jemma. “Where is she going?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” she says airily—though honestly, she’s more than a bit worried about that herself. The Playground is compromised and a number of their agents are traitors, Bobbi and Mack included.

With SHIELD out of the question, to whom can Alice possibly turn?

“Come on.” Trammell stalks over to loom threateningly above her and flushes with anger when she only tips her chin up at him disdainfully. “You expect me to believe you don’t have any contingency plans? You’ve never taught her what to do if the Playground’s compromised?”

Of _course_ she has. Unfortunately, most of those plans involve at least one member of the team being available to help, and in light of Bobbi’s betrayal…

Trip was away last night, off on a mission in China. Will Alice risk reaching out to him? Or will she be too shaken by Bobbi’s involvement in their captivity to risk it?

Jemma knows her well enough to suspect the latter, and it knots her stomach with dread. Still, she’s hardly about to show that to Trammell.

“What I expect you to believe,” she says evenly, “is that there is no way on Earth that I will help you find my daughter.”

She braces for a blow as his hands fist at his sides, but after a moment, he very deliberately relaxes.

“Fine,” he says. “You don’t wanna talk to me? You can talk to someone else.” He jerks his head at one of the guards. “Put her in the van. We’ll continue this at home base.”

Jemma isn’t—can’t be—bothered by the distinctly ominous tone to those words. All that matters is that they’re continuing on their way and leaving Alice behind, out of their reach.

It’s more than a wretch, abandoning her to whatever help she can find herself. It’s the worst feeling in the world—the hardest thing she’s ever done. In this case, however, she thinks the unknown is better than whatever these people have planned for, as they kept (distressingly) referring to her, _Grant Ward’s daughter_.

Jemma has raised an intelligent and resourceful girl. Alice will be fine.

She has to believe that.

 

 

 

 _Home base_ turns out to be a warehouse several hours away, and by the time they reach it, Jemma’s adrenaline has long since worn off. With it went her blissful ignorance of the injuries she sustained in the course of distracting the guards so Alice could escape; there isn’t an inch of her that doesn’t hurt, and she’s particularly concerned by the pain that stabs at her side every time she breathes.

It’s likely she looks as horrible as she’s feeling, because Bobbi—who the back of the van opens to reveal waiting for them—takes one glance at her and instantly rounds on Trammell.

“What the _hell_ , Chris?”

“She tried to escape!” Trammell defends.

Bobbi appears unimpressed. “What part of _unharmed_ do you _not get_? We’re all friends here, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, tell that to _her_ —”

Jemma tips her head back against the wall of the van, letting their argument wash over her. Perhaps it should be heartening that Bobbi is so upset over her state, but it only leaves her cold. _We’re all friends here_ —as though she didn’t just last night lead an invading force against the Playground, toss Jemma and Alice in (separate!) cells, and stand idly by while Coulson and May were dragged away for questioning.

This whole mess is painfully reminiscent of the uprising, and the role Bobbi is playing is all too familiar.

It’s only when Bobbi raises her voice that Jemma tunes back in, just in time to hear an incredulous, “What do you mean you _lost her_?”

“We were a little distracted trying to keep Simmons from _shooting us_ ,” Trammell snaps. “The kid made a break for it and she is _freakishly_ fast, okay, my best guys couldn’t—”

“—couldn’t keep up with a teenage girl?” Bobbi asks dryly, and then turns to Jemma. “Simmons, look—”

Feeling contrary, Jemma closes her eyes.

“I know you’re upset, and you have every reason to be. This whole thing—well, it didn’t go down the way we hoped it would. We—”

“The way you _hoped_ it would?” Jemma interrupts, opening her eyes to pin Bobbi with her most disgusted look. “Precisely how did you _intend_ to turn against us, then?”

Bobbi’s expression tightens for a moment, then relaxes. “I know you don’t understand, and I promise, we’ll explain everything. We’re doing the right thing, you’ll see.”

Jemma sincerely doubts it.

“But for right now,” Bobbi goes on, “it is really, really important that you help us find Alice. _Please_.”

At that, Jemma would swear that her blood turns to ice in her veins. Trammell asking for help finding Alice is one thing—an infuriating and absurd thing, of course, but still.

Bobbi—who has been such a friend to her for _years_ , who knows Alice, who _loves_ Alice—whom Alice has honored with the title of “Aunt”—asking is something else entirely.

And asking like _that_? It’s clear that this isn’t just about making sure Alice doesn’t get away; they _need_ her for something. Jemma suspected as much from the way Mack—damn him—was behaving when he brought her out of her cell this morning, but she was so hoping she was wrong. She’s plainly not, and the very thought of what these people might want with her daughter terrifies her.

“Absolutely not,” she says. She can’t seem to force her voice above a whisper, but her tone is still enough to make Trammell flinch.

Bobbi, on the other hand, only sighs.

“Okay,” she says, turning back to Trammell. “We ran background checks on all of her school friends years ago. They should still be on the Playground’s servers. Get their addresses and check them out—see if Alice has contacted them or if they have any idea where she might go.”

“Yeah,” he says, and starts to turn away.

“And hey,” Bobbi adds, stopping him. “Remember to maintain her cover identity. The last thing we need is to draw HYDRA’s attention by running around asking after Alice Simmons.”

“No kidding,” Trammell agrees.

As he disappears from Jemma’s limited range of sight—she’s still handcuffed in the van—Bobbi looks to some of the other guards.

“You guys take Simmons to the infirmary,” she orders. “ _Gently_. Get her patched up while I check in with the Council.”

So there’s a Council involved, is there? Jemma makes note of that—just as she makes note of everything she sees while being escorted through the base. An old warehouse it may be, but it’s a very well-appointed one; whoever these people are, she suspects their resources far exceed SHIELD’s.

That Bobbi and Mack and Trammell—and who _knows_ who else—have had access to all of this while everyone at the Playground scrimped and saved would be enough to boil Jemma’s blood…were it not still iced over by worry about what they want with Alice.

The infirmary is just as well equipped as the rest of the base, and soon Jemma is resting in a comfortable but secure room, her broken ribs wrapped, her wounds bandaged, and her wrist cuffed firmly to the hospital bed.

“Is this truly necessary?” she questions the stern-faced nurse, tugging against the cuff.  Both of her wrists are raw and bruised from struggling against her previous restraints, but the topical numbing cream the nurse applied before bandaging them seems to be working wonders. “There are three locks and four guards on the door. I hardly think restraints are called for on top of all that.”

“I disagree.”

At the sudden new voice, Jemma looks up—and very nearly swears. Robert bloody Gonzales.

She should’ve known.

“Agent Gonzales,” she says evenly. “Now why doesn’t it surprise me to discover that you’re involved in all of this?”

Gonzales smiles wryly as he settles into the chair beside her bed. Bobbi remains behind him, lingering in the doorway like a guest who knows very well that she is unwelcome yet is still reluctant to leave.

“You’ve never liked me, have you, Agent Simmons?” Gonzales asks.

“No,” she says. “And for good reason, it appears.”

Before the uprising, Gonzales was a highly-ranked agent with a sterling reputation. Back then, Jemma would have been pleased to meet him and honored to work with him. But _after_ the uprising, he essentially disappeared, and it was only two years ago that he made himself known again, joining SHIELD after a lengthy negotiation with Coulson.

It was the negotiation, more than the disappearance, that soured Jemma against him. Hesitation to rejoin SHIELD in the wake of the uprising’s revelations is, on its own, completely understandable. But the suspicious way he regarded—and continues to regard Coulson—the rank and respect he demanded, the frequency with which he questions Coulson’s orders and decisions after the fact…

 _That_ she could not forgive.

Of course, if she thought she disliked him before, finding him involved in this mess—this mess centered, somehow, around her _daughter_ —pushes her right into outright loathing.

“Hm.” Gonzales sighs, folding his hands over his cane. “I wish we had time to convince you of our good intentions, Agent Simmons, but that will have to wait for later. For the moment, I need your help.”

“With _what_?” she bites out. If she’s about to be asked _again_ to lead them to Alice…

Sure enough, his answer is a simple, “Finding your daughter,” and Jemma slumps back against her pillow, heartsick and furious.

Not knowing where Alice is—whether she’s safe, whether she’s frightened, whether she’s found help or is hiding somewhere, alone—tears at her. She’s a horrifically imaginative person, and she can picture any number of terrible things that might be happening to her daughter at this very moment. She won’t breathe easy until Alice is in her arms, safe and whole.

It kills her to refuse to help them look because it kills her to be away from Alice. But there’s no guarantee Alice would be any safer here than she would be sleeping under a bridge somewhere. And there is not a chance in hell that Jemma is about to hand her daughter over to people who want so clearly to _use_ her.

She says as much to Gonzales, and he frowns severely.

“We have no intention of hurting Alice,” he says—quite condescendingly, as though it’s something she should already know. As if she should instinctively trust in the benevolence of people who _kidnap_ her. “Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for anyone she might meet while wandering the streets of the city.” He pauses significantly. “You know as well as I do the kind of risk she faces.”

Jemma is tempted to correct him that actually, she knows quite a bit _better_ than he does, but she refrains.

Instead she suggests, “Why don’t we make this simple? Tell me what you want with Alice, and I’ll decide whether your _intentions_ are as harmless as you claim.”

“We’re going to find her with or without your assistance,” he tells her, ignoring her question in a way that it is not at all encouraging. “You’re one of the brightest agents SHIELD has ever seen, but your daughter isn’t anywhere near your caliber. How long do you think she can evade us?”

“How _dare_ you,” she snaps, incensed just as much by his tone as by his words. It’s hardly the first time someone has suggested that Alice is somehow _lacking_ because she didn’t inherit Jemma’s genius, but it infuriates her just as much as that first muttered comment did—as _every_ comment does.

Perhaps the handcuffs are necessary after all; if she weren’t restrained, she rather thinks she would rip that patronizing smile off of Gonzales’ face with her bare hands.

“Alice may not be a prodigy, but she is _not_ stupid,” she says, as evenly as she’s able. “I have complete confidence in her ability to outsmart you…not that _that’s_ saying much.”

If the implied insult bothers Gonzales, he hides it well. “Yes, we’ve been told she’s not without her talents. I hear she has quite the gift for languages—she takes after her father in that regard, if I’m not mistaken.”

Bobbi fidgets guiltily in the doorway, suggesting that that particular bit of intelligence came from her, but Jemma barely notes it. Her mind has been cast back by Gonzales’ words—specifically, to a conversation she had with Alice nearly two years ago, after being informed by May that Alice had abruptly quit her language lessons.

She can still remember that moment with perfect clarity…mostly because she’s revisited it often. In the weeks following the conversation, it actually kept her up at night, hearing the echo of Alice’s small, miserable voice in her ear.

 _“Kids take after their parents, right? But the only reason I’m even_ passing _biology is ‘cause I study as much for it as I do all my other classes_ combined _, so I obviously don’t get anything from you. Who does that leave?”_

It was the first time Alice ever indicated she was bothered by the prospect of taking after…after her father, but it was far from the last. She was eventually persuaded not to abandon her language lessons—though it took no small amount of convincing on not only Jemma’s, but also Trip’s, May’s, and Coulson’s parts—but to this very day, Jemma has been unable to coax her daughter into any kind of self-defense training.

She’s cajoled, threatened, and even had Coulson order Alice to the training room, but she’s never set foot in it. She doesn’t even know how to fire an ICER; at one point Jemma, driven to desperate measures by her stubbornness, actually resorted to simply providing verbal instruction, and Alice plugged her ears and sang annoying pop songs to herself until Jemma gave up.

Alice is _petrified_ of engaging in any sort of violence—even the simulated kind—for fear that she’ll develop a taste for it. She’s haunted by the possibility that she’ll find she has more in common with her father than hair color and a gift for foreign languages.

And considering the timing of it…

A freezing sort of fury takes over Jemma as she wonders, suddenly, whether she might be looking at the man who planted that horrible thought in her daughter’s head.

“Tell me,” Gonzales says, “does she take after him in any other ways?”

Oh, yes. He is most _certainly_ the cause of Alice’s pain.

“Sir.” Bobbi’s voice is too deferential to truly be called sharp, but only just. It’s certainly forceful enough to pull Jemma out of her barely-started consideration of which poison would best express her displeasure with people who hurt her daughter. “Agent Simmons isn’t familiar with your sense of humor. Maybe we should get back to the point.”

“Of course,” he says, nodding seriously. “Agent Simmons, we need your daughter’s help.”

“Her _help_?” Jemma echoes. In light of the derisive tone Gonzales used mere moments ago, the idea that he might _want_ Alice’s help is more than a stretch—to say nothing of him admitting to _needing_ it. “She’s not even sixteen, what help can she be to you?”

“It’s very important that we find her as soon as possible,” he says, and the shameless way he ignores the question ( _again_ ) makes her heart drop.

Whatever ‘help’ he wants from Alice…Jemma is certain it’s nothing good.

“Well,” she says evenly, careful to keep her fear out of her voice, “in the future, when you need help? I suggest you try _asking_ for it before resorting to kidnapping.”

“Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option,” Bobbi says gently. “Coulson never would’ve allowed it.”

…If Jemma found their lack of elaboration troubling, _that_ is downright chilling. “Why not?”

“You brought a lot of valuable intel with you when you were rescued from HYDRA,” Gonzales says.

It’s such a complete non-sequitur that it nearly gives Jemma whiplash—which is really the last thing she needs, on top of all of her other injuries.

“I was a prisoner for eight years,” she points out, once her mind catches up with the abrupt change of subject. “I had plenty of time to gather it.”

“Precisely,” Gonzales says, grimly triumphant.

Despite her strong reluctance to do so, Jemma is at enough of a loss to look to Bobbi for help. She’s met with a gentle, pitying expression that instantly sets her teeth on edge.

“Simmons,” Bobbi says softly. “Haven’t you ever wondered why it took _eight years_ to rescue you?”

Honestly, yes. Those years were long and, as they drew on and on, she wondered frequently what was taking SHIELD.  On every bad day, in every instant of fear, her mind went first to her daughter, but second to her team—to doubt and worry. More than once, she wondered whether they were trying at all to reach her.

And even now, in her darker moments—moments when she wakes reaching for a man she shouldn’t have had to get accustomed to sleeping beside, when Alice uses a turn of phrase she picked up from her father, when she finds herself hesitating to open a door, absurdly afraid she’ll find it locked—she’s forced to push aside unreasonable resentment.

How could it take them _eight years_ to get her—to get _Alice_ —away from HYDRA?

But she knows it’s unreasonable of her, and even if it weren’t, she’d hardly be inclined to confess it to Bobbi and Gonzales. Instead, she rolls her eyes.

“Oh no,” she says. “I can’t _imagine_ why SHIELD might find it difficult to access my prison just because it happened to double as the _head of HYDRA’s private quarters_.”

Most of the team is given to flinching or uncomfortable shifting or, on a few memorable occasions, semi-violent outbursts when reminded of the exact circumstances of Jemma’s imprisonment. She thinks they like to pretend, for their own peace of mind, that she spent those years locked in a cell somewhere—rather than forced into playing happy family with a man they all despise.

Bobbi and Gonzales, however, don’t flinch or shift or throw anything. They exchange a knowing look, and then Bobbi comes forward, finally leaving the doorway in favor of perching at the foot of Jemma’s bed.

Jemma gives thought to kicking her, but before she has the chance, Bobbi speaks, utterly derailing her train of thought.

“Jemma,” she says gently, “Coulson _left_ you there.”

…What? “Don’t be ridiculous—”

“Coulson had the intel and manpower for a rescue within months,” Gonzales interrupts sharply. “He chose to leave you— _and your daughter_ —in HYDRA’s hands for years so you would have time to gather your own, very _personal_ , intel on Ward’s operations. It’s obvious he was treating your captivity as an undercover assignment.”

She doesn’t think it’s obvious at all. In fact, there are so many holes in their claim that she genuinely doesn’t know where to _start_.

Which is just as well, as she doesn’t get the chance.

Before she can even open her mouth, the base is rocked by a sudden explosion. Alarms blare, and three of the four guards on the still-open door disappear down the corridor, presumably searching for answers. One of them is back in seconds with a brief—and rather unhelpful, Jemma thinks—“We’re under attack!”

Bobbi swears, darting out of the room at once. Gonzales is slower to rise.

“We’ll finish this later,” he says, appearing unruffled as another explosion sounds. “In the meantime, think about what we’ve said.”

Jemma feels that the only appropriate response to that is a rude gesture. In the face of it, Gonzales smiles tightly and then limps his way out of the room. The door closes—and is loudly locked—behind him.

Finally.

No longer forced to put up a strong front, she curls around the agony in her ribs, giving herself a few minutes to breathe through her panic and fright. Not that breathing helps much—in fact, it hurts rather a lot—but she needs the moment to collect herself.

The aspirins she was given earlier, though hardly sufficient for her level of pain, took the edge off enough for her to ignore her physical discomfort during that little interview—and of course no amount of pain could ever match her worry for Alice. Still, it’s not pleasant; it makes this horrid situation that much more difficult.

Helpless tears sting at her eyes until she forces them back. Her daughter is somewhere out in the world, likely alone and certainly scared, but crying won’t do her a damned bit of good. Jemma simply needs to find her, that’s all—find her and hug her for at least an hour.

A sudden crack of gunfire in the hall startles her out of her misery, and she pushes herself up, wiping at her eyes with her free hand. It would hardly do to upset her rescuers—Trip, she presumes, and perhaps May and Coulson, already freed from their own captivity—by greeting them looking as awful as she feels.

Something heavy—the last remaining guard, if she’s any judge, though it’s difficult to be certain through the window’s textured glass—falls against the door, and then there’s the scraping of a key in the multiple locks.

The door swings open. Jemma’s heart stops.

It’s not Trip. Or May. Or Coulson.

“Sorry for the wait,” Gr— _Ward_ says coolly, stepping carelessly over the body of the guard. “You’re a hard woman to find.”

It can’t be a coincidence that he’s here now. Nearly a decade he’s been looking for her—for Alice—and he just _happens_ to find her when she’s being held prisoner?

There’s only one possible explanation.

“Oh, Alice,” she breathes, heart aching for how _hopeless_ she must have been, that she turned to _him_ for help. Tears burn at her eyes, and this time, there’s no possible way she can stop them—not when she’s picturing her poor daughter, torn between desperation and good sense, being forced to approach a man she has reason to fear so utterly.

“Safe and sound,” Ward promises, lowering the bed’s railing in order to perch at her hip. His warmth sears through her, and when she recoils on instinct, he holds her in place with a hand on her other hip. “At one of my bases, of course.”

It’s been nine years since the last time he touched her, and she’s dismayed to find it still sets her skin to humming in exactly the same way. She’s utterly cornered and this psychopath has her _daughter_ ; if ever there’s a time for her skin to crawl, this is it, and yet…

But her body’s shameful attraction to Grant Ward is irrelevant, and she pushes the thought impatiently aside. That Alice is safe is of much more concern. Being in Ward’s custody is bad enough; who knows what might have happened to her before she reached him?

“Is she hurt?” she asks. It comes out rather hoarsely, forced past the tightness in her throat as it must be, and Ward’s smile fades into something dark.

“Some bumps and bruises,” he says, and by his voice, he finds that just as unacceptable as she does. But then, his care for Alice was one thing that was never in question. “Not as bad as you, though.” His eyes sweep her, lingering on the bandages visible through her slightly torn shirt. “Broken rib?”

“Two of them,” she confirms. Her free hand moves automatically to cover them, but he catches it on the way, frowning at the gauze around her wrist.

“She said you distracted them so she could run,” he says.

“I did.”

He thumbs her bruised knuckles. “Doesn’t look like they took that too well.”

“Not at all,” she agrees, tugging her hand away. “Because, as it turns out, it wasn’t me they wanted.”

It’s probably a foolish thing to say. She and Alice will have enough trouble escaping him a second time _without_ him being put even further on edge by news of a serious threat to Alice. But whatever else he is and whatever he might have planned for her, she can trust—she _hopes_ she can trust—that he won’t hurt Alice. She has no such assurance for Gonzales.

Escape can wait until Alice isn’t as risk.

“They wanted _Ally_?” he asks, eyes narrowing. “What for?”

“They won’t say,” she admits, “so I can’t imagine it’s anything good.”

“Well.” His hand flexes on her hip. “Doesn’t matter anyway. They’re not getting anywhere near her.”

It’s good to hear, but it also brings on a new worry. One that needs to be addressed immediately, no matter that she’s sorely tempted to ignore it.

“Am I?” she asks.

Ward quirks an eyebrow in that mocking way of his, but she meets his stare evenly. It’s a valid question; it wasn’t uncommon, when Alice was very young, for him to move Jemma out of their quarters in the wake of escape attempts. He once kept Alice from her for three long and unbearable weeks, and that was when she only made it to the _lobby_. She doesn’t want to imagine what retaliation he might have planned for her in light of _nine years_ of hiding.

After a long, nerve-wracking minute, he smiles.

“I would never dream of keeping you from her,” he says, in a significant tone meant—she thinks—to remind her that she’s done exactly that to _him_. It leaves her stomach oddly hollow. “Especially when she’s so worried about you.”

The words leech a little of the anxious tension out of her spine—a _very_ little. There’s still something disquieting in the curve of his smile.

“But?” she asks.

He cups her jaw, his grip tightening nearly to the point of pain when she attempts to pull away, and leans in close. For a heartbeat, she thinks he’s going to kiss her; instead, he presses his forehead to hers, his hand sliding away from her chin and up into her hair. Her eyes flutter closed as something that _can’t_ be longing wells up from deep within her.

“But my daughter doesn’t know me,” he says, low and angry, “and you’re gonna have to pay for that—one way or another.”

It should terrify her.

All it does, though, is make her hurt. His choice of words stabs at her heart—she doesn’t have to pay for leaving him or hiding or even for taking Alice away, but because Alice _doesn’t know him_. Any of the others she could dismiss as his possessive tendencies, write off as relating to his delusions of owning her, but _that_?

He loves Alice. She knows that—she’s always known it. It was never in doubt. Just like it was never—and _still_ isn’t—in doubt that taking her away from him was nonetheless the right thing to do. That he’s a good and loving father doesn’t make him any less an evil man, one responsible for hundreds—if not _thousands_ —of deaths and no end of chaos.

Jemma did the right thing. She _knows_ she did the right thing.

Still, hearing him put it like that…

“Sir.”

Ward leans away, and Jemma opens her eyes to find Ortilla—one of his favored specialists, who used to participate in Alice’s tea parties without a hint of embarrassment and who two years ago killed fifteen civilians to make a _point_ during a hostage situation—standing just outside the door.

“Status?” Ward asks him calmly.

“Good to go,” Ortilla reports. “We’ve got six prisoners for interrogation, Repin’s wiped their servers, and our exit’s clear.”

“Good work.” Ward stands and circles the bed to examine the handcuffs restraining Jemma to the other side’s railing. It barely takes him three seconds to pick the lock, and then he’s offering her a soft smile and a hand up. “Ready to get out of here?”

Jemma doesn’t hesitate. Whatever he has planned, however he intends to make her pay…none of that matters a jot.

The only thing that matters is that he takes her to Alice.

“More than,” she says, and lets him help her to her feet without a second thought.

**Author's Note:**

> Ta-da? This is very self-indulgent and I'm kind of poking at more (from Jemma's POV, next time), which is why it's marked as multi-chapter, but...idk. Please do let me know what you think!


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